In a message dated 11/22/2004 10:22:32 PM Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > > Dear Listers, > > A relative discovered that her family was listed with the wrong last name in > the 1930 Census. > > Is there a precedent for making a change? > > Is it necessary to make the change? > > Should the Census Taker's results be studied for other errors? > > The daughter was born two years after the Census, but her brother was > already three. > > They are still alive, but the father and mother have already passed away. > > Appreciate any answers or suggestions and any other stories or complications > from this. > > Thanks, Dave Witthans > An original record, including the census, cannot be "corrected." While it may not agree with what we know/surmise to be the truth, it is the truth of the way the data was recorded. My best advice for anyone who finds a record which they believe they can prove wrong, is to write it up in an article and have it published in a genealogical periodical, or on the internet (if it's somewhere you're confident will always be there). Safest would probably be to do both. If you have it published it will be indexed by a search engine (or in a periodical it will be indexed in PERSI--and is much more permanent) and future researchers will be able to find your "correction" to the record. But since PERSI only indexes articles by the titles, so you'd want to make sure you had the family name in the title of your article. When you record the information in your genealogy program (hopefully which we all intend to be published one day), you should acknowledge the original reading of the record, the error you believe exists in the record, and explain your reasons proving it to be wrong. Some government records, like vital record certificates, can be amended. But the original cannot be (and should not be) changed. It is what it is. Julie Kidd